SPAMD(8) BSD System Manager's Manual SPAMD(8)
spamd - spam deferral daemon
spamd [-45bdv] [-B maxblack] [-c maxcon] [-G passtime:greyexp:whiteexp]
[-h hostname] [-l address] [-M address] [-n name] [-p port]
[-S secs] [-s secs] [-w window] [-Y synctarget] [-y synclisten]
spamd is a fake sendmail(8)-like daemon which rejects false mail. It is
designed to be very efficient so that it does not slow down the receiving
machine.
spamd considers sending hosts to be of three types:
blacklisted hosts are redirected to spamd and tarpitted i.e. they are
communicated with very slowly to consume the sender's resources. Mail is
rejected with either a 450 or 550 error message. A blacklisted host will
not be allowed to talk to a real mail server.
whitelisted hosts do not talk to spamd. Their connections are instead
sent to a real mail server, such as sendmail(8).
greylisted hosts are redirected to spamd, but spamd has not yet decided
if they are likely spammers. They are given a temporary failure message
by spamd when they try to deliver mail.
When spamd is run in default mode, it will greylist connections from new
hosts. Depending on its configuration, it may choose to blacklist the
host or, if the checks described below are met, eventually whitelist it.
When spamd is run in blacklist-only mode, using the -b flag, it will con-
sult a pre-defined set of blacklist addresses to decide whether to tarpit
the host or not.
When a sending hosts talks to spamd, the reply will be stuttered. That
is, the response will be sent back a character at a time, slowly. For
blacklisted hosts, the entire dialogue is stuttered. For greylisted
hosts, the default is to stutter for the first 10 seconds of dialogue
only.
The options are as follows:
-4 For blacklisted entries, return error code 450 to the spammer
(default).
-5 For blacklisted entries, return error code 550 to the spammer.
-B maxblack
The maximum number of concurrent blacklisted connections to
stutter at. This value may not be greater than maxcon (see
below). The default is maxcon - 100. When this value is exceeded
new blacklisted connections will not be stuttered at.
-b Run in blacklist-only mode.
-c maxcon
The maximum number of concurrent connections to allow. maxcon may
not exceed kern.maxfiles - 200, and defaults to 800.
-d Debug mode. spamd does not fork(2) into the background.
-G passtime:greyexp:whiteexp
Adjust the three time parameters for greylisting. passtime de-
faults to 25 (minutes), greyexp to 4 (hours), and whiteexp to 864
(hours, approximately 36 days).
-h hostname
The hostname that is reported in the SMTP banner.
-l address
Specify the local address to which spamd is to bind(2). By de-
fault spamd listens on all local addresses.
-M address
Specify a local IP address which is listed as a low priority MX
record, used to identify and trap hosts that connect to MX hosts
out of order. See GREYTRAPPING below for details.
-n name
The SMTP version banner that is reported upon initial connection.
-p port
Specify a different port number from the default port that spamd
should listen for redirected SMTP connections on. The default
port is found by looking for the named service "spamd" using
getservbyname(3).
-S secs
Stutter at greylisted connections for the specified amount of
seconds, after which the connection is not stuttered at. Defaults
to 10.
-s secs
Delay each character sent to the client by the specified amount
of seconds. Defaults to 1.
-v Enable verbose logging. By default spamd logs connections,
disconnections and blacklist matches to syslogd(8) at LOG_INFO
level. With verbose logging enabled, message detail including
subject and recipient information is logged at LOG_INFO, along
with the message body and SMTP dialogue being logged at LOG_DEBUG
level.
-w window
Set the socket receive buffer to this many bytes, adjusting the
window size.
-Y synctarget
Add target synctarget to receive synchronisation messages.
synctarget can be either an IPv4 address for unicast messages or
a network interface and optional TTL value for multicast messages
to the group 224.0.1.240. If the multicast TTL is not specified,
a default value of 1 is used. This option can be specified multi-
ple times. See also SYNCHRONISATION below.
-y synclisten
Listen on synclisten for incoming synchronisation messages. The
format for synclisten is the same as for synctarget, above. This
option can be specified only once. See also SYNCHRONISATION
below.
When run in default mode, connections receive the pleasantly innocuous
temporary failure of:
451 Temporary failure, please try again later.
This happens in the SMTP dialogue immediately after the DATA command is
received from the client. spamd will use the db file in /var/db/spamd to
track these connections to spamd by connecting IP address, HELO/EHLO,
envelope-from, and envelope-to, or tuple for short.
A previously unseen tuple is added to the /var/db/spamd database, record-
ing the time an initial connection attempt was seen. After passtime
minutes if spamd sees a retried attempt to deliver mail for the same tu-
ple, spamd will whitelist the connecting address by adding it as a whi-
telist entry to /var/db/spamd.
spamd regularly scans the /var/db/spamd database and configures all whi-
telist addresses as the pf(4) <spamd-white> table, allowing connections
to pass to the real MTA. Any addresses not found in <spamd-white> are
redirected to spamd. The following pf.conf(5) example is suggested:
table <spamd-white> persist
no rdr inet proto tcp from <spamd-white> to any \
port smtp
rdr pass inet proto tcp from any to any \
port smtp -> 127.0.0.1 port spamd
spamd removes tuple entries from the /var/db/spamd database if delivery
has not been retried within greyexp hours from the initial time a connec-
tion is seen. The default is 4 hours as this is the most common setting
after which MTAs will give up attempting to retry delivery of a message.
spamd removes whitelist entries from the /var/db/spamd database if no
mail delivery activity has been seen from the whitelisted address by
spamlogd(8) within whiteexp hours from the initial time an address is
whitelisted. The default is 36 days to allow for the delivery of monthly
mailing list digests without greylist delays every time.
spamd-setup(8) should be run periodically by cron(8). Use crontab(1) to
uncomment the entry in root's crontab.
spamlogd(8) should be used to update the whitelist entries in
/var/db/spamd when connections are seen to pass to the real MTA on the
smtp port.
spamdb(8) can be used to examine and alter the contents of /var/db/spamd.
See spamdb(8) for further information.
spamd sends log messages to syslogd(8) using facility daemon and, with
increasing verbosity, level err, warn, info, and debug. The following
syslog.conf(5) section can be used to log connection details to a dedi-
cated file:
!spamd
daemon.err;daemon.warn;daemon.info /var/log/spamd
When running spamd in default mode, it may be useful to define spamtrap
destination addresses to catch spammers as they send mail from greylisted
hosts. Such spamtrap addresses affect only greylisted connections to
spamd and are used to temporarily blacklist a host that is obviously
sending spam. Unused email addresses or email addresses on spammers'
lists are very useful for this. When a host that is currently greylisted
attempts to send mail to a spamtrap address, it is blacklisted for 24
hours by adding the host to the spamd blacklist <spamd-greytrap>. Spam-
trap addresses are added to the /var/db/spamd database with the following
spamdb(8) command:
# spamdb -T -a 'spamtrap@mydomain.org'
See spamdb(8) for further details.
The file /etc/mail/spamd.alloweddomains can be used to specify a list of
domainname suffixes, one per line, one of which must match each destina-
tion email address in the greylist. Any destination address which does
not match one of the suffixes listed in spamd.alloweddomains will be
trapped, exactly as if it were sent to a spamtrap address. Entries begin-
ning with an equals sign ('=') will be taken as full match instead of
suffix match. This can be used for whitelisting on recipient addresses,
if the full set of possible localparts is known.
For example, if spamd.alloweddomains contains:
@humpingforjesus.com
obtuse.com
=paul@apostles.humpingforjesus.com
The following destination addresses would not cause the sending host to
be trapped:
beardedclams@humpingforjesus.com
beck@obtuse.com
beck@snouts.obtuse.com
paul@apostles.humpingforjesus.com
However the following addresses would cause the sending host to be
trapped:
peter@apostles.humpingforjesus.com
bigbutts@bofh.ucs.ualberta.ca
A low priority MX IP address may be specified with the -M option. When
spamd has such an address specified, no host may enter new greylist tu-
ples when connecting to this address; only existing entries may be updat-
ed. Any host attempting to make new deliveries to the low priority MX for
which a tuple has not previously been seen will be trapped.
Note that is is important to ensure that a host running spamd with the
low priority MX address active must see all the greylist changes for a
higher priority MX host for the same domains, either by being synchron-
ised with it, or by receiving the connections itself to the higher prior-
ity MX on another IP address (which may be an IP alias). This will ensure
that hosts are not trapped erroneously if the higher priority MX is una-
vailable. For example, on a host which is an existing MX record for a
domain of value 10, a second IP address with MX of value 99 (a higher
number, and therefore lower priority) would ensure that any RFC confor-
mant client would attempt delivery to the IP address with the MX value of
10 first, and should not attempt to deliver to the address with MX value
99.
The normal way that spam has been dealt with in the past is to either ac-
cept and drop, or outright block. When configured to use 450 responses,
spamd takes neither of these actions: it rejects the mail back to the
senders' queue.
When running in default mode, the pf.conf(5) rules described above are
sufficient. However when running in blacklist-only mode, a slightly modi-
fied pf.conf(5) ruleset is required, redirecting any addresses found in
the <spamd> table to spamd. Any other addresses are passed to the real
MTA.
table <spamd> persist
rdr pass inet proto tcp from <spamd> to any \
port smtp -> 127.0.0.1 port spamd
Addresses can be loaded into the table, like:
# pfctl -q -t spamd -T replace -f /usr/local/share/spammers
spamd-setup(8) can also be used to load addresses into the <spamd> table.
It has the added benefit of being able to remove addresses from black-
lists, and will connect to spamd over a localhost socket, giving spamd
information about each source of blacklist addresses, as well as custom
rejection messages for each blacklist source that can be used to let any
real person whose mail is deferred by spamd know why their address has
been listed from sending mail. This is important as it allows legitimate
mail senders to pressure spam sources into behaving properly so that they
may be removed from the relevant blacklists.
spamd listens for configuration connections on the port identified by the
named service "spamd-cfg" (see services(5)). The configuration socket
listens only on the INADDR_LOOPBACK address. Configuration of spamd is
done by connecting to the configuration socket, and sending blacklist in-
formation, one blacklist per line. Each blacklist consists of a name, a
message to reject mail with, and addresses in CIDR format, all separated
by semicolons (;):
tag;"rejection message";aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd/mm;aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd/mm
The rejection message must be inside double quotes. A \" will produce a
double quote in the output. \n will produce a newline. %A will expand to
the connecting IP address in dotted quad format. %% may be used to pro-
duce a single % in the output. \\ will produce a single \. spamd will re-
ject mail by displaying all the messages from all blacklists in which a
connecting address is matched. spamd-setup(8) is normally used to config-
ure this information.
spamd supports realtime synchronisation of greylisting states between a
number of spamd daemons running on multiple machines, using the -Y and -y
options.
The following example will accept incoming multicast and unicast syn-
chronisation messages, and send outgoing multicast messages through the
network interface em0:
# /usr/libexec/spamd -y em0 -Y em0
The second example will increase the multicast TTL to a value of 2, add
the unicast targets foo.somewhere.org and bar.somewhere.org, and accept
incoming unicast messages sent to example.somewhere.org only.
# /usr/libexec/spamd -y example.somewhere.org -Y em0:2 \
-Y foo.somewhere.org -Y bar.somewhere.org
If the file /etc/mail/spamd.key exists, spamd will calculate the message-
digest fingerprint (checksum) for the file and use it as a shared key to
authenticate the synchronisation messages. The file itself can contain
any data. For example, to create a secure random key:
# dd if=/dev/arandom of=/etc/mail/spamd.key bs=2048 count=1
The file needs to be copied to all hosts sending or receiving synchroni-
sation messages.
/etc/mail/spamd.alloweddomains Required suffixes for greytrapping.
/etc/mail/spamd.conf Default configuration file.
/etc/mail/spamd.key Authentication key for synchronisation
messages.
/var/db/spamd Greylisting database.
pf.conf(5), services(5), spamd.conf(5), syslog.conf(5), pfctl(8), spamdsetup(8),
spamdb(8), spamlogd(8), syslogd(8)
The spamd command first appeared in OpenBSD 3.3.
Previous versions of spamd required traps to be entered into the database
including the enclosing <> characters; current versions expect only the
email address without the enclosing <> characters.
spamd currently uses the user "_spamd" outside a chroot jail when running
in default mode, and requires the greylisting database in /var/db/spamd
to be owned by the "_spamd" user. This is wrong and should change to a
distinct user from the one used by the chrooted spamd process.
MirBSD #10-current July 1, 2009 5